Electronics, such as processors or memory, generate heat during operation. If left unchecked, this heat can reduce system performance and even lead to partial or complete system failure. As such, many existing technologies attempt to remove or dissipate heat through the use of heat sinks, cooling fans, etc.
While these technologies may be effective for cooling a single electronic component that is not located near other sources of heat, these technologies fall short when it comes to more complex systems and higher density systems, such as solid state drives (SSDs), dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs), and small outline-DIMMs, all of which utilize memory cells to store data as an electrical charge or voltage.
Existing cooling systems for such systems typically include multiple heat sinks and high-speed fans. These cooling systems are noisy; add significant expense to the system; increase the overall energy consumption of these systems; and decrease system efficiency. Moreover, existing cooling systems do not always alleviate localized hot-spots that form within the systems, which in turn shortens the life of the individual components within the system.
In the absence of efficient heat dissipation mechanisms, the increased heat can ultimately lead to reduced performance or failure of either individual memory cells of a memory module or the entire memory module.
Some systems include circuitry that is also sensitive to high temperatures. For example, Solid State Disk (SSD) drives typically contain support circuitry that during normal operation generates a large amount of heat. However, the NAND flash memory used in these designs has a temperature sensitivity that reduces the life of the drive.
A common technique for removing heat from the NAND in an SSD is to integrate a heat sink design in the case design for the drive. However, this presents a problem when the form factor for the SSD does not include a case, e.g., PCIe or embedded SSDs that use a PCBA (printed circuit board assembly) and no case. In other words, many of the heat sinks used for SSDs are an integral part of the case design, and when there is no case, the heat removal is handled by passing large volumes of air over the heat generating components. However, as mentioned above, these cooling systems are noisy; add significant expense to the system; increase the overall energy consumption of these systems; decrease system efficiency, and do not always alleviate localized hot-spots that form within the systems.
In light of these and other issues, it would be desirable to provide a system and method for more effectively cooling electronic components, especially those found in systems that contain multiple heat generating components.